Afghanistan's Political Uncertainty To Persist Despite Release Of Election Results

We at Fitch Solutions believe that a presidential election runoff is likely to take place in Afghanistan given the slim advantage gained by President Ashraf Ghani over Abdullah Abdullah, his closest rival, in the first round of voting.

Even in the event of a runoff a power struggle between the two presidential hopefuls is inevitable in our view, causing protracted political uncertainty in the medium term.

A political deadlock could weaken the central government’s ability to maintain order and thereby benefit the Taliban, which has been seeking to expand its influence in Afghanistan.

We at Fitch Solutions believe that the presidential elections in Afghanistan will go to a second round between the incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. However, a runoff in the presidential polls will likely yield a political deadlock in the legislature where both candidates refuse to concede defeat. The release of the preliminary election results was postponed twice due to ‘technical issues’ and fraud allegations from Abdullah’s team. On December 23 2019, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) finally announced that President Ashraf Ghani had secured a second term having won 50.6% of the votes in the first round of voting among 18 candidates. His main rival Abdullah received 39.6% of total votes. However, the results are not final and are still subject to a review by the election complaints’ commission. In view of our assessment of the situation, we have decided toe are maintain Afghanistan’s Short-Term Political Risk Index score at 35.2, as it already reflects immense political instability in the country.

Political Situation Remains Highly Unstable In Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Short-Term Political Risk Index Score (out of 100)

We believe a run-off is likely as Ghani achieved a narrow margin of only around 11,000 votes. According to media reports, the ECC has already received 16,500 complaints from several presidential candidates, more than 8,000 of which were from Abdullah’s team. A review from the election complaints’ commission could annul tens of thousands of votes, which could show that no candidate has secured more than 50% of the votes. In such a case, the electorate will head for a second round of voting between the top two candidates. Indeed, a Reuters report on December 23 quoted Deputy Head of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) Deen Mohammad Azimi as saying that there is a ‘strong possibility’ of a runoff.

However, a runoff will do little to help Afghanistan escape prolonged political impasse. Regardless of the result in the runoff, the losing candidate is likely to allege fraud and refuse to accept the election result. Given that Abdullah also challenged the 2009 and 2014 election results, we expect to see the same if runoff a second round yields another Ghani victory. Indeed, Abdullah has also been adamant about his popularity among voters in this election and has repeatedly claimed that he is the actual victor according to the ‘clean’ vote count. On the other hand, Ghani is also likely to reject the results if Abdullah garners more votes in the runoff, given his victory in the first round of voting.

As such, we see a rising likelihood of Afghanistan slipping into an extended political deadlock similar to the impasse that followed the 2014 elections, when both Ghani and Abdullah refused to concede. The impasse was eventually resolved when the US brokered a national unity government where Ghani and Abdullah shared power as the president and the newly-created role of chief executive respectively. Although the 2019 polls were supposed to be conducted in the most free and fair manner, with German biometric machines in place to prevent people from voting more than once, allegations of cheating in various forms including vote stuffing and illegal voting emerged as soon as the polls had closed. The polls also saw a low turnout of only 1.8mn voters, of 9.6mn who registered to vote, amid threats from the Taliban – an anti-democratic extreme Islamic insurgent group – of bombing polling stations.

Prolonged Political Deadlock Could Allow The Taliban To Gain Power

It should be noted that the resolution that the then US president Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, managed to broker in 2014 may not be achievable by the current US President Donald Trump who will be leading his own re-election campaign in 2020. The US’ interest in Afghanistan has waned since then, and Trump is keen to reduce US troops from Afghanistan ahead of the US election. Moreover, the Taliban continues to exclude the Afghanistan government from the ongoing peace talks with the US, dismissing the Kabul administration as a Western puppet. This further reduces the need for the US to intervene in the political deadlock to ensure stability of a democratic government. Even if the US does try to intervene, the appetite for another power-sharing term has likely very much diminished in both Ghani and Abdullah, given that the rivalry between the two men remain entrenched, so much so that it has hampered the national unity government. As such, we see the deadlock between the two Afghani rivals to be more protracted this time around.

The Taliban Seeks To Control More Areas In Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Zones Of Control

Source: Al Jazeera, Fitch Solutions

A prolonged power struggle between the two leaders could weaken the central government’s grasp on domestic security, potentially providing the Taliban an opportunity to expand its influence. The refusal to concede loss by both Ghani and Abdullah could also fuel discontent from the supporters of other factions, especially the Pashtuns (main support base of Ghani) and the Tajiks (main support base of Abdullah), towards the government. In an absence of a leader commonly acknowledged by all ethnicities, the central government’s power to maintain order would be jeopardised, which raises the risk of the Taliban filling in the power vacuum. While the Taliban remains outside the formal political system, it has been seeking to expand its reach using force and currently controls around 10% of Afghanistan (see map above). The risk of the Taliban seizing control could further increase if a peace deal is reached, as the Taliban could take advantage of the departure of US troops to launch a campaign against the central government.